“Weaving together theory, personal experience and a deep knowledge of the power of Art to transform individuals and communities, Mendel has written a comprehensive and accessible book that fills the meaning and how-to gap skirted by much of the current discourse around arts for social engagement and community arts. Read this book! Its pages will inspire and guide artists, adult educators, and activists to create meaningful arts-based opportunities for personal and social change.” —Terri Whetstone, Artist and Executive Director, 4Cs Foundation, Nova Scotia “Using the Creative Arts for Transformational Learning is a welcome new resource for all of us working in community-engaged arts. It expresses the difficulties and desires concerning the combination of personal and social/political creative expression with a refreshing mix of subtle thought, personal experience and hands-on advice. Tessa Mendel responds to matters at the heart of our work – boldly asking a question that often gets side-stepped: how exactly does art-making cause change? In responding to this question, she succeeds in the delicate task of offering a coherent analysis and approach that illuminates theory and assists practice without being prescriptive. I know that I will be referring to, citing and recommending this book for years to come, and I’m proud that Jumblies is able to help publish and promote it.” —Ruth Howard, Artistic Director, Jumblies Theatre, Toronto “Part memoir, part work-book, part-theory, part exercise-guide, this is a must-read and must-use book for any arts practitioner interested in personal and social change. As a visual arts university instructor, as an individual practicing visual artist, and as a community arts facilitator, I will be guided by the principles and deepening learning I found in this book.” —Rose Adams, Artist and Educator, Foundation Faculty, NSCAD University
“Weaving together theory, personal experience and a deep knowledge of the power of Art to transform individuals and communities, Mendel has written a comprehensive and accessible book that fills the meaning and how-to gap skirted by much of the current discourse around arts for social engagement and community arts. Read this book! Its pages will inspire and guide artists, adult educators, and activists to create meaningful arts-based opportunities for personal and social change.” —Terri Whetstone, Artist and Executive Director, 4Cs Foundation, Nova Scotia “Using the Creative Arts for Transformational Learning is a welcome new resource for all of us working in community-engaged arts. It expresses the difficulties and desires concerning the combination of personal and social/political creative expression with a refreshing mix of subtle thought, personal experience and hands-on advice. Tessa Mendel responds to matters at the heart of our work – boldly asking a question that often gets side-stepped: how exactly does art-making cause change? In responding to this question, she succeeds in the delicate task of offering a coherent analysis and approach that illuminates theory and assists practice without being prescriptive. I know that I will be referring to, citing and recommending this book for years to come, and I’m proud that Jumblies is able to help publish and promote it.” —Ruth Howard, Artistic Director, Jumblies Theatre, Toronto “Part memoir, part work-book, part-theory, part exercise-guide, this is a must-read and must-use book for any arts practitioner interested in personal and social change. As a visual arts university instructor, as an individual practicing visual artist, and as a community arts facilitator, I will be guided by the principles and deepening learning I found in this book.” —Rose Adams, Artist and Educator, Foundation Faculty, NSCAD University
FINALIST FOR THE GOVERNOR GENERAL'S AWARD FOR NON-FICTION Interrogating our ideas of race through the lens of her own multi-racial identity, critically acclaimed novelist Tessa McWatt turns her eye on herself, her body and this world in a powerful new work of non-fiction. Tessa McWatt has been called Susie Wong, Pocahontas and "black bitch," and has been judged not black enough by people who assume she straightens her hair. Now, through a close examination of her own body--nose, lips, hair, skin, eyes, ass, bones and blood--which holds up a mirror to the way culture reads all bodies, she asks why we persist in thinking in terms of race today when racism is killing us. Her grandmother's family fled southern China for British Guiana after her great uncle was shot in his own dentist's chair during the First Sino-Japanese War. McWatt is made of this woman and more: those who arrived in British Guiana from India as indentured labour and those who were brought from Africa as cargo to work on the sugar plantations; colonists and those whom colonialism displaced. How do you tick a box on a census form or job application when your ancestry is Scottish, English, French, Portuguese, Indian, Amerindian, African and Chinese? How do you finally answer a question first posed to you in grade school: "What are you?" And where do you find a sense of belonging in a supposedly "post-racial" world where shadism, fear of blackness, identity politics and call-out culture vie with each other noisily, relentlessly and still lethally? Shame on Me is a personal and powerful exploration of history and identity, colour and desire from a writer who, having been plagued with confusion about her race all her life, has at last found kinship and solidarity in story.
This examination of Sri Lanka's ethnic and religious minorities links the past with the present through a treatment of Sinhala-Buddhist fundamentalist development in the late nineteenth century and its hegemony in the late twentieth.
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